If you’re like Tip Dude, you spend your life constantly looking for stuff like: wallet, keys, iPod, credit card, checks, that important receipt, socks, and cell phone. While Tip Dude can’t tell you how to avoid losing them in the first place, he can tell you how to make most things magically reappear:

• Pray To The Gods - In most cultures, there is some kind of a spirit in charge of making stuff reappear, because losing track of stuff has been such a problem since ancient times. For example, for Catholics, it’s St. Anthony. There’s a Buddhist equivalent too that Tip Dude’s grandmother used to use. If you don’t know who your “Finding Nemo” spirit is, then ask your minister.
• Remember What You Last Used It For - Most people, even the most disorganized of us, tend to leave things in some logical place near where they last used it. You might think you already looked there, but that’s probably because you didn’t look hard enough. Look again, not just in the place where you thought you’d left it, but in nearby places where you might have absentmindedly placed it.
• Retrace Your Footsteps - If you don’t find it near where you were last using them item, retrace your footsteps from where you last saw the item. For instance, if you lost your car keys, and you think it should be in your purse and it’s not, you should probably also look in your coat pocket (even if you never put keys there), on the counter top, inside the car, and on the couch where you sat down after coming in from the car. If you were carrying groceries in from the car, you might look near where you put the groceries down, or even in the fridge. Items have a habit of ending up in completely illogical locations, especially if you become distracted while holding the item. Tip Dude once found a screwdriver he misplaced inside a computer that he was repairing.
• Comb The Pile - Are you looking for an important piece of paper that you know you put away, but can’t find it in the usual pile of bills or letters? First, make sure you really don’t have it in the pile where you thought it was. If your pile is literally that - just a pile of papers - then you should go through each and every page and sort every page into categories. This will help you make sure the important page isn’t in the pile (and when you’re done, even if you don’t find it, you will have a more organized pile of correspondence).
• Check for Misfiles - So, the letter wasn’t in the pile that you thought it was. Now try looking in the piles where you didn’t think it would be. For example, your renter’s insurance certificate is supposed to be with that pile of housing related stuff, like electric bills and all. But it isn’t there. But maybe it came in the mail with the credit card bill or a medical bill. You probably put it someplace where the bills waiting to be paid goes. Or, if you’ve already paid it, maybe you filed it with the medical bills or the bank stuff. Misfiles occur often when people are tired, so look in places where you might have misfiled it at the time when you received the important letter.
• Think About Where You Might Have Hidden It - Especially if you’re looking for a valuable item, it is more likely that you actually hid it from yourself instead of losing it to a thief or misplacing it accidentally. Tip Dude periodically hide things that he thinks other people might steal, in locations where he thought no one would think to check for valuables. The problem with that approach is that you might hide it from yourself. One time Tip Dude found a long-lost iPod in the clean laundry basket. Analyze your thoughts from the last few times saw it: did you hide it? If so, what are the three most likely places where you might hide something like the item you’re looking for?
• Tactile Search - Did you lose your glasses that you put someplace safe in the room, but now you can’t see to look for it? That’s when you need to feel around like a blind person. Mentally divide all the safe surfaces in the room into zones. Start from the first zone, work from left to right, feel each item and ask yourself “Is this alarm clock my glasses? No.” Don’t be afraid to pick up each item, or “zoom in” on the area by moving your face closer to the counter top than it has ever been. No one is looking at you, and no one is around to shove your head into the desk while you’re at it -besides, you really need to find your glasses.
• Systematic Search - Did you lose one earring when you dropped it? Start from the place where you dropped it, carefully and slowly examine each square inch of the ground for it. Expand your search area in a circle further and further away from where you dropped it as you eliminate possibilities. If you lost it on a carpeted surface, use your hands - it might be buried in long carpet piles. This is the same technique that divers use to look for shipwrecks or other underwater artifacts whose approximate location is known, but exact location isn’t. It takes a long time, but it usually finds the item.
• Retrace The Object’s Trajectory - Sometimes, you drop a screw or something and then can’t find it on the ground. Why? Usually, this is because the screw bounced off of something on its way down, and then flew sideways before coming to rest. If you look down as soon as you drop something, you might have an idea of the direction in which it flew. So, if you ever drop something small, try to follow its path with your eyes. Also, Tip Dude quite frequently find that something that he thought had dropped to the ground actually got caught on his lap or on the chair. So check all of these locations when you’re retracing its path.
• Look Again Tomorrow - Use the spare car keys for now. (If you don’t have spares, get one.) Quite often, the object you need to find mysteriously reappears after a day or two, in a location where you’ve already looked three times. Especially if you tell everyone in the household that you’re looking for that object. Magic, isn’t it?

What are your best tips for finding lost items?

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